Page 98 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

GIDDENS, ANTHONY (1938– )

textual difference to generate meaning and pleasure. In other words, each western
or each musical has to be both the same as others and different from them.
For example, the general features of soap opera as a genre involve open-ended
narrative forms, the use of core locations, the tension between the conventions of 75
realism and melodrama and the pivotal themes of inter-personal relationships.
Thus, soap opera as a long-running serial without a formal ending does not have the
sense of closure to be found in the feature film or the 13-episode series. Further,
most soaps establish a sense of geographical space that the audience can identify
with and to which the characters return again and again. In terms of form or style,
soap opera utilizes the conventions of realism and melodrama and can be
differentiated in terms of the balance struck between them. Soap opera has the
themes of marriage, divorce, break-ups and coming togethers, alliances,
arguments, acts of revenge and acts of caring at the core of its narrative dynamic
and emotional interest. Given the stress in soaps on the personal sphere it is
understandable that the family forms the mythic centre of the genre.
Since the mid-1970s we have witnessed a notable collapse or blurring of genre
boundaries within cultural products that has been hailed by some as the marker of
postmodernism in film, television and architecture. For example, Bladerunner and
Blue Velvet are frequently cited as films which mix the genres of noir, horror, sci-fi
etc. Further, they are ‘double-coded’, allowing them to be understood both by the
literati and a popular audience. Likewise, the popular television programme The
Simpsons commonly requires us to have a self-conscious awareness of other
television and film genres as it makes a range of intertextual references. For
example, The Simpsons has made use of the road-movie format, with direct reference
to Thelma and Louise.

Links Narrative, postmodernism, realism, representation, soap opera, television, text

Giddens, Anthony (1938– ) Formerly Professor of Sociology at the University of
Cambridge (UK), the British-born thinker Anthony Giddens was until recently the
Director of the London School of Economics. Giddens has sought to legitimate the
project of sociology and has sometimes been critical of the impulses of cultural
studies; nevertheless, his work has exerted considerable influence amongst writers
in the field. Giddens’ expertise in classical sociology formed the bedrock of his
structuration theory, which endeavours to overcome the dualism of agency and
structure. His more contemporary work has coalesced around the themes of
modernity, identity and globalization. For Giddens, globalization is a consequence
of the dynamism of modernity, while that which others have labelled postmodern
is for him better understood as late-modern, that is, the radicalization of the de-
traditionalizing forces of modernity. In this context the self is a reflexive project
freed from traditional constraints and in a state of continual re-invention.
• Associated concepts Agency, globalization, identity project, life-politics,
modernity, reflexivity, structure, time–space geography.
• Tradition(s) Hermeneutics, Marxism, structuralism, structuration theory.
• Reading Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.